More On Carbon Dating Tissue

The New York Times has more on a recent advance in radiocarbon dating of tissue in the body. A lot of you is not as old as you might think. From the article: "But if the body remains so perpetually youthful and vigorous, and so eminently capable of renewing its tissues, why doesn't the regeneration continue forever? Some experts believe the root cause is that the DNA accumulates mutations and its information is gradually degraded. Others blame the DNA of the mitochondria, which lack the repair mechanisms available for the chromosomes. ... 'The notion that stem cells themselves age and become less capable of generating progeny is gaining increasing support,' Dr. Frisen said. He hopes to see if the rate of a tissue's regeneration slows as a person ages, which might point to the stem cells as being what one unwetted heel was to Achilles, the single impediment to immortality."

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/science/02cell.html?pagewanted=print

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